This Is Why We Persevere

Ira Glass has a fantastic anecdote about how creative people go through years of struggle in order to learn how to make their work match their ambitions. He also says something about how artists aren’t special. Most aren’t particularly talented. The only reason they’re a good artist is because they wanted it more than everyone else.

These same principles pertain to everything: art, sports, business, accounting, music, whatever. If you find what you’re into, you’ll work as long as you need to for your work to match your ambitions. Oh my god though, it takes so much time.

I’ve been working with chalk since 2016 and in those 6 years I’ve spent thousands of hours tinkering with my chalks. I still have much improving to do in order to match the things I see in my mind but I know that if I keep at it, I’ll eventually get there. It may take 30 years and if that’s the case, so be it…as long as I can check back every few years and see my improvement.

So, today - here’s the reason we stick with it…..

FLOWERS THEN FLOWERS NOW

LETTERING THEN LETTERING NOW

I can’t even tell you how proud I was of that lobster chalkboard. I showed it off to anyone who would look at it. I genuinely thought that as I got better, I’d be able to create things like you see on the right within the same amount of time and using the same amount of effort as I did at the time. WHAT A BUFFOON. Good things take time, no matter how experienced someone is.

PORTRAITS THEN PORTRAITS NOW

Just like lettering, good portraits take time…they take A LOT of time. Granted, the portrait on the left is on a chalkboard that’s about 20” x 24” whereas the portrait on the right is 48” x 60” so the size difference is enormous but I maybe spent an hour on the first portrait and 20 hours on the second one.

The point here is that if you want to get good at something, you need to practice. You need to put in the time. You need to apply your passion, your focus, and more than anything else, your patience. Being patient with the process and playing the long game is hard. I get it. I promise you though, if you can persevere, you’ll look back at your old work and wonder where the time went.

So, keep on hustlin’ my friends. If you want something bad enough, you’ve got to work for it.